A Leicester firm is helping to design the world's largest botanical garden - being built in one of the world's driest places.

Haley Sharpe Design is playing a key part in plans for the futuristic Oman Botanic Garden, on a 1,000 acre site on the Arabian Peninsula.

Located 20 miles from Muscat, in the foothills of the Al Hajar Mountains, the scheme will celebrate and conserve the country’s botanic diversity, with two biomes containing a significant number of endangered species.

The cost has yet to be revealed but Cornwall's 30 acre Eden Project - tiny by comparison - cost £141 million to build.

Haley Sharpe Design (HSD) has more than 35 years experience in the planning, design and production of interactive visitor experiences, from museums, to heritage buildings, children’s museums, science centres, and visitor attractions.

Based in Guildhall Lane, near Leicester Cathedral, it has built an international reputation for design work on museum and heritage sites such as the new Postal Museum and Mail Rail in London, the Royal Armouries in Hampshire and London, the proposed Kurdistan Museum in Erbil and the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center in Maryland, America.

It doing the designs which will show off the rich natural treasures of the Omani landscape through three-dimensional exhibits and informative storytelling.

The displays will work hand in hand with the architecture.

The Oman site chosen for the project is one of only a few locations in the world where the ancient sea bed is still visible after tectonic activity elevated it to a 100 metres above sea level.

Planning consultants Arup and architecture firm Grimshaw have worked with the site's existing natural ridges and ravines to design the buildings and walkways that fit into the undulating land.

In collaboration with HSD they have designed a vast site where visitors will be able to experience the entire flora of the Sultanate of Oman in just a few hours.

Building work is getting underway soon.

Northern biome

Alisdair Hinshelwood, designer and director at HSD, said: "The Oman Botanic Garden project set itself and the entire design team unique technical and cultural objectives, and aspirations.

"HSD has relished working on a project where the botanical, landscape and cultural heritage of Oman is being expressed through the detailed scientific research, technical design and sheer creative enthusiasm of the entire team, client and design alike."

He said the eight defined habitats of the country will all be covered and visitors will be able to travel around the wadis, mountains and deserts of Oman within an immersive landscaped setting displaying only native species - many of them found nowhere else in the world.

The northern biome will re-create the habitats of the country's northern mountains, including their ancient terraces, while the southern biome and its undulating glass roof, will enclose the habitats of the Dhofar region, where visitors will be immersed in a moist and green forest setting.

The site has been built around the local sunlight, weather patterns and the way people will walk through it to help visitor flow.

The buildings, along with the garden site, have been designed to globally recognised sustainability standards.

And with water such a precious resource, particularly in the region, Arup has developed a strategy for the irrigation and water features.